@winston I thought about buying them, but it would be an investment to get all the episodes I want. So I’m happy with my new CraveTV subscription. Not only do I get post-gap Doctor Who, but a lot of other stuff besides. It will be fun to review more episodes, including some I’ve not watched in a long time.

Many of you may remember me whining when Netflix was set to drop Doctor Who. Where was I to find my Doctor Who fix? In Canada, CraveTV has carried on with the licensing, and we signed up over the weekend. I was finally able to watch “Heaven Sent” … sans commercials. What a difference! I knew it was a brilliant…[Read more]

@juniperfish I agree with you completely about Clara. Like you, I was blown away by her introduction in “Asylum of the Daleks” (which held so much promise, yet I think, in subsequent episodes did not deliver with that character quite as I’d hoped). I liked Clara, but I also found myself worn out by her. I kept wondering when I was going to get to…[Read more]

I will always see “Heaven Sent” as the episode that won me over to Peter Capaldi’s Doctor. It was just such a tour de force performance, and the fact that he carried the episode almost singlehandedly makes it even more impressive. It helped me see his entire run up to that point very differently, and I have appreciated him ever since. He’s had so…[Read more]

I posted this on Doctor Who‘s Facebook page, so thought I would repeat it here:

I am am intrigued by this casting. You’ve been signaling it all year, with Missy, so it comes as no great surprise. With Moffat & Co. leaving, we could see it was time for a clean start, much as Moffat did with Matt Smith’s Doc. So I’m looking forward to this.

@serahni I agree with you. I liked Rose, and admit that I did get a bit teary-eyed over some of the soap-ish plots involving her and the Doctor. And I ain’t no teenager. Wasn’t then, and certainly am not now. But I also found myself growing a bit weary of that, especially when Martha was sent down a similar road. Which is why I was so happy to…[Read more]

You make some very good points, @tardigrade. The interesting thing is that as Missy firmly clasps the Doctor’s hand, the words she speaks indicate she will not stand with him. But maybe her gesture is “the other mind” side of it. That’s why these “layered” scenes are so good; the layers can lead to many different interpretations.

@winston Well, at the end of “Empress of Mars,” Missy did asked the Doctor if he was all right. So maybe she has known all along that his regeneration was impending, and that’s part of why she decided to stand with him. Also, would she have somehow known that the Master would destroy her in the end? If so, then “without hope, without witness,…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip For me, “Face the Raven” worked precisely because of the reasons you say it didn’t work for you. Clara had escaped “certain death” so many times (and, of course, earlier on she didn’t … or versions of her didn’t) that it felt like she and the Doctor were always going to find a clever way out. Then – Boom! – she is undone by her…[Read more]

I watched the episode again, and now I remember why Hazran reminded me of The Woman. It’s early on in this episode, when she grabs a gun and runs for the porch. It was just her facial expression, which reminded me of a facial expression The Woman had (for the brief times we saw her).

Another bit of recognition: When the Doctor is firing again and…[Read more]

I have enjoyed reading everyone’s posts. Thank you so much, as always, for shedding light on so many subtleties I missed the first time around.

Earlier I mentioned that I saw a resemblance between Hazran and The Woman in “Hell Bent” (it could just be the presence of a barn in both episodes). Looking at photos now, they don’t look much alike, but…[Read more]

@donnawho I felt that this Doctor wasn’t rebelling so much against dying; he knows he isn’t dying. But it’s more about changing … yet again. He doesn’t want to wear another face. He doesn’t want to change, he wants to stay as he is. And that certainly reverberates on a personal level. Many of us don’t want to change, but must. It’s reality. It…[Read more]